Spore
There's a computer game called "Spore" that should be very interesting to the people here. Image:Spore7.jpg Image:Spore1.jpg Make sure that you see the video of it, on Google Videos. It will load immediately, no long wait time. In case you're reading on, because you need some justification to see it, it demonstrates: * Cellular life,... * ...growing to multi-cellular life, ... * ...developing to live on land, ... * ...collecting together into tribes, ... ...actually, it goes much further than this, but I don't want to spoil it. Just watch the movie already. Oh, you're still reading this! Okay, then I need to still tell you some things, to get you to go see it. * It's also features "fitness," showing some of the ideas in evolution. (That said, it also features design.) * The games an effective teacher; It uses the game to motivate you into learning how to use the editing tools, to paint your world. * That is, it's an incredibly creative game as well, players spend a lot of time just tweaking things, making them nice, making them how they want them. * The game is a landmark game in game development, because near everything is "programmatic." You could say that this game is evolutionary in terms of game development: The ideas expressed here in this game are going to spread far and wide and will touch most every game produced in the future. This is not just a new game, this is a whole new world of ways to manufacture games. Yes, the game development community is well aware of this game, and there is no professional computer game developer that does not know about this game. (Just ask one.) * Somewhat indirectly, the games is also about open content. There are many movements happening right now, evolutionary spirituality being one of them. Open content is another movement, and this game taps into both of those movements. * The game is also an experiment in meaning making. The game starts very directed, but moves into a space where the player constructs their own meaning for the game. Just watch the video already! It'd be a huge shame if the evolutionary spirituality community was not up on this game. :) Computer simulation is an important element in our future evolution. We developed minds, and they too run simulations: "What will happen if I do X? What will happen if I do Y?" That this game was made, completely independently of the evolutionary spirituality groups, can be taken as a sign that now is the time for this movement. When you are talking with the younger generation, you can point them to things such as this game, and use it as a vehicle for your conversation. LionKimbro 08:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC) ---- Note the use of evolutionary language at work here: * GDC 06: Liveblogging Will Wright - Will Wright is the creator of Spore; notice the simulation ideas, and the cosmic & evolutionary concept art. Here's another, written up by Game Girl Advance. Note the focus on education. "Consilience" is a word that stirs the integral trends within the Evolutionary Spirituality movement. * Business Week on Electronic Arts: A Radical New Game Plan -- "Every week, the teams with the most remarkable breakthroughs have their work featured on the flat-panel TV screens that are placed throughout the studio. "It creates the feeling that you are swimming in a sea of small inventions," says Young, and helps spur cross-pollination between different cells. The more tedious line production tasks, such as coloring in trees or trucks, are outsourced. The cell system is now at work in several of the company's smaller studios, including the new Montreal location." * The Long Zoom